How to get the separate digits of an int number?

Solution 1:

To do this, you will use the % (mod) operator.

int number; // = some int

while (number > 0) {
    print( number % 10);
    number = number / 10;
}

The mod operator will give you the remainder of doing int division on a number.

So,

10012 % 10 = 2

Because:

10012 / 10 = 1001, remainder 2

Note: As Paul noted, this will give you the numbers in reverse order. You will need to push them onto a stack and pop them off in reverse order.

Code to print the numbers in the correct order:

int number; // = and int
LinkedList<Integer> stack = new LinkedList<Integer>();
while (number > 0) {
    stack.push( number % 10 );
    number = number / 10;
}

while (!stack.isEmpty()) {
    print(stack.pop());
}

Solution 2:

Convert it to String and use String#toCharArray() or String#split().

String number = String.valueOf(someInt);

char[] digits1 = number.toCharArray();
// or:
String[] digits2 = number.split("(?<=.)");

In case you're already on Java 8 and you happen to want to do some aggregate operations on it afterwards, consider using String#chars() to get an IntStream out of it.

IntStream chars = number.chars();

Solution 3:

How about this?

public static void printDigits(int num) {
    if(num / 10 > 0) {
        printDigits(num / 10);
    }
    System.out.printf("%d ", num % 10);
}

or instead of printing to the console, we can collect it in an array of integers and then print the array:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Integer[] digits = getDigits(12345);
    System.out.println(Arrays.toString(digits));
}

public static Integer[] getDigits(int num) {
    List<Integer> digits = new ArrayList<Integer>();
    collectDigits(num, digits);
    return digits.toArray(new Integer[]{});
}

private static void collectDigits(int num, List<Integer> digits) {
    if(num / 10 > 0) {
        collectDigits(num / 10, digits);
    }
    digits.add(num % 10);
}

If you would like to maintain the order of the digits from least significant (index[0]) to most significant (index[n]), the following updated getDigits() is what you need:

/**
 * split an integer into its individual digits
 * NOTE: digits order is maintained - i.e. Least significant digit is at index[0]
 * @param num positive integer
 * @return array of digits
 */
public static Integer[] getDigits(int num) {
    if (num < 0) { return new Integer[0]; }
    List<Integer> digits = new ArrayList<Integer>();
    collectDigits(num, digits);
    Collections.reverse(digits);
    return digits.toArray(new Integer[]{});
}